You doubtless think of Watson and myself as rough, tough, gruff, thick-skinned, hard-nosed men  of action who would rather eat a slice of quiche than read a poem. In reality we are sensitive, gentle, poetic spirits who take solace in sonnets.

So naturally we are going to take the chance to post a few poems today.

You’re beautiful by Simon Armitage on love and the gap between the sexes: Men are from Yorkshire, women are from Lancashire.

Next, John Cooper Clarke’s Beasley Street: a nightmare vision. Written in the grim days of the 80s. Feels just as true today

And finally, in this “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness”.,John Keats’s magnificent Ode to Autumn. Over-anthologised to death, but they can’t stifle  one of the most beautiful poems in the English language.